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If nothing else, the final four episodes of the first season effectively call into question which party (the terrorists or the USA) is actually standing on higher ground, the Americans or the terrorists? Is there much difference between them?

A key theme within the show centers on the idea of fidelity. This theme manifests in three different but important ways: fidelity to marriage, fidelity to career, and fidelity to country. Interestingly, the show represents each of these different kinds of fidelity has competing factors whereby a hierarchy of fidelity emerges, placing fidelity to marriage firmly at the bottom and fidelity to country at the top.

The events of 9/11 caused these notions to crumble and the post 9/11 America has become tainted by paranoia about the intention of “others,” harbors a consistent feeling of uncertainty about the world around us, and is being forced to redefine what it means to be American. The first episodes of Showtime’s Homeland are heavily playing to the aforementioned themes, right down to the opening sequence (first seen in episode two).

Over the course of the Spring 2017 semester, participants in the Homeland course will each be rewatching the show from the beginning (approximately four episodes per week) and blogging about each week’s rewatch progress. We will be attempting to not only engage deeply with the episodes and explore the show from a variety of critical academic angles but also engage with other scholars in the process.